SOMETHING IS wrong when full-time workers fall more than $3,000 a year below the poverty level.

Yet that is exactly the situation in California, where the minimum wage -- now $4.75 an hour -- recently reached a 40-year low in purchasing power.

California voters will have a chance to modestly improve the predicament of the working poor by voting for Proposition 210 on November 5. It would increase the minimum wage to $5 an hour in March 1997 and to $5.75 an hour in March 1998.

Even if inflation were stagnant, a full-time worker at the minimum wage would still be below the poverty line, but it would at least mark a step in the right direction.

These workers have been losing ground for too long. They represent only 5 percent of the labor force. Many of them have rejected the welfare option not out of financial pragmatism, but out of their work ethic.

They deserve better.

Two myths about raising the minimum wage need to be dispelled.

First of all, the minimum wage does not just apply to teenagers who flip hamburgers or deliver pizzas for spending money. About 81 percent of all workers who would get an increase from the proposed increase are 20 and older -- and 44 percent are 30 and older.

Also, the argument that a $5.75 minimum wage would cost many jobs is disputed by many reputable economists.

Proposition 210 would put California 60 cents above the federal minimum wage, leading opponents to warn of a competitive disadvantage. History suggests otherwise. The last time the state raised its minimum wage above the federal level -- to $4.25 an hour, in 1988 -- unemployment dropped and 385,000 new jobs were created in the next year.

The experience of other states also shows that raising the minimum wage is just not a major force in stimulating or chilling economic growth. It is, however, critical to workers struggling to make ends meet.

It is also important to taxpayers. Many minimum-wage workers qualify for government health insurance, school-lunch programs and even welfare payments. The state estimates that the $5.75 minimum would reduce welfare payments for about 50,000 Californians.